The new people always go for this extern, and with good reason!! the idea of using vst’s within a modular host is a perfect balance between the world of before Max and after. Highest level meets relatively lower than before and such.

It’s a damn shame that it’s so bugged out.

mathsieve, to start with vst~ is a horrible mistake. You really need to learn Max if you want to understand what these dudes are talking about. you have a set of tutorials somewhere in your max/msp folder. The vst~ object will be almost useless without the necessary knowledge.

Count on taking the next month off entirely if you want to get to a point where you can start using it in a musical way.

thanks for that. obviously a very stupid question! but last time i tried to use vst~ that didn’t appear to work…. but i have upgraded since then.

To Dr_Sbaitso: no need to patronise me, fella. i’m not a complete newbie, thanks. i do understand what everyone is talking about here, i’m in the middle of writing a sequencer in js that needs to be able to interact with vst~.

It’s not a stupid question, Mathsieve. :) You are just admidst a bunch of curmudgeonly power MAX/MSP users/programmers who have probably seen posts like this and have answered them countless times, ad nauseum.

I was in the same boat as you a few weeks ago (and still am to a degree), and now I understand the vst object much better…but not entirely based on MAX/MSP tutorials, reference manuals, and help files. Those don’t cut it by themselves (though this may seem surprising to some power users), because just like most other instructional material that was not designed (or appears to have been not designed) by experts in the instructional design industry, but SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), is assumes a certain degree of knowledge that you may not have, and the steps aren’t always spelled out in "user" fashion. Steps are missing, not everything is defined, so some experimention or real discussion with a human being is required. In my case, I am fortunate enough to have a very generous friend who knows MAX/MSP very well and set me straight on these things, but as an expert and practioner myself in the instructional design field (in practice and academically) and as a past technical writer, MAX/MSP documentation is not "world class" instructional material…it’s not just MAX/MSP, as many other software companies suffer from this same inadequacy. I continue to see many expert MAX/MSP users insist that us newbies just read the documentation (as if we haven’t tried that already with no success), but this makes some false assumptions, and naive ones at that. For one, there are many learning styles in the world, some of which don’t mesh well with just "reading" as a learning device. So, just reading the information and tutorials will not work for some people. This is a fact and has been proven with years of educational research. Some people learn by direct experience, trial and error, others by guidance from real people, some by text only, others by graphics, others by a mix of both, etc…and on and on. The styles are diverse.

This is why I think it’s great that this forum exists and you power users are so patient with us newborn max/msp users…you have super human patience with us! And this is why I also think it is great that cycling 74 offers workshop on MAX/MSP, although it is a damn shame (and missed opportunity for revenue generation and more expansive user education) that they don’t offer virtual live training, using the various synchronous online learning tools out there.

So, feel free to send me your not-so stupid questions (info@krispenhartung.com), and I’ll answer them until I reach my limits…which will be easy to do, I admit. But I can at least talk about the VST object right now, having just created a 60 VST host for performance. We can share our pain. :)

Cheers,

Kris

Quote: mathsieve wrote on Sun, 24 September 2006 09:00
—————————————————-
> thanks for that. obviously a very stupid question! but last time i tried to use vst~ that didn’t appear to work…. but i have upgraded since then.
>
> To Dr_Sbaitso: no need to patronise me, fella. i’m not a complete newbie, thanks. i do understand what everyone is talking about here, i’m in the middle of writing a sequencer in js that needs to be able to interact with vst~.
—————————————————-

Krispen Hartung wrote:
> I was in the same boat as you a few weeks ago (and still am to a
> degree), and now I understand the vst object much better…

Yeah you learn fast…

> but not entirely based on MAX/MSP tutorials, reference manuals, and
> help files. Those don’t cut it by themselves (though this may seem
> surprising to some power users), because just like most other
> instructional material that was not designed (or appears to have been
> not designed) by experts in the instructional design industry, but
> SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), is assumes a certain degree of
> knowledge that you may not have, and the steps aren’t always spelled
> out in "user" fashion.

I always found the Max documentation way superiour to anything else I
know, but you are probably right, even in the first days of Max it was
always assumed you are familiar with patching a modular synth, which I
was. Thats already a bunch of knowledge I wasn’t aware of…

> Steps are missing, not everything is defined, so some experimention
> or real discussion with a human being is required. In my case, I am
> fortunate enough to have a very generous friend who knows MAX/MSP
> very well and set me straight on these things, but as an expert and
> practioner myself in the instructional design field (in practice and
> academically) and as a past technical ! writer, MAX/MSP documentation
> is not "world class" instructional material…it’s not just MAX/MSP,
> as many other software companies suffer from this same inadequacy.

I’d encourage everybody who feels there is a need for additional
instruction material to put something together as long as you are in the
state of a new user. Later you won’t be able to know whats missing. I
teach best, if I am just one step ahead of the student. I once thaught a
complete Javascript beginners course without any prior knowledge of
Javascript (but of other programming languages). It was a success,
because I’d know where the students would struggle, as I struggled
during preparation of the lessons myself… (I consider myself still a
Javescript beginner though… ;-)

> I always found the Max documentation way superiour to anything else I know, but you are probably right, even in the first days of Max it was always assumed you are familiar with patching a modular synth, which I was. Thats already a bunch of knowledge I wasn’t aware of…

> > Steps are missing, not everything is defined, so some experimentionor real discussion with a human being is required. In my case, I am fortunate enough to have a very generous friend who knows MAX/MSP very well and set me straight on these things, but as an expert and practioner myself in the instructional design field (in practice and academically) and as a past technical ! writer, MAX/MSP documentation
> > is not "world class" instructional material…it’s not just MAX/MSP,as many other software companies suffer from this same inadequacy.
>
> You might have missed something which I think perfectly fills that gap: The Max tutorials from Peter Elsea. ftp://arts.ucsc.edu/pub/ems/maxtutors/
>
> Get them all…

Great. Thanks, Stephen. This helps…everything helps. Although, adding more documentation reinforces my orginal point about learning styles. For some people, actually many people, reading is not their primary learning style, meaning they don’t learn as effective via that type of medium. In fact, only 30% of all learners learn best by reading. The rest fall into other categories, like Doing. Eveyone has a mix of learning styles, sometimes a very balanced blend of doing, reading, visuals, theory, facts, etc. Some people are very heavy on one particular learning style. For instance, in my experience in the tech industry, most enginners or programmers I have worked with are predominate "read" based learners….which explains why many subject matter experts in the software industry and in forums like this often recommend reference documentation as a learning tool. They love manuals, and often read them end to end…for me, that is just another definition of sheer hell. Sure, I read manuals, but at some point they become ineffective and I need to "do" or be coached, or experiment with guidance, and so on. And in some instructional design circles, reading isn’t even considered formal learning (e.g. a written tutorials), but formal education or instruction is limited to human-to-human interaction following a process of instructor modeling, student practice with assistance, instructor feedback, student practice without assistance, more instructor feedback, and so on until the the student achieves the desired bahavior.

So, I come back to my original thought…I wonder when MAX/MSP will extend their training strategy beyond documentation and face-to-face workshops to the modern world of synchronous, instructor-led eLearning. Most all the major fortune 500 companies have already adoped this approach internally, and some externally, because they konw that they can’t possibly capture their target learning audiences with face-to-face training alone. And external, customer focused eLearning carries with it a massive potential for revenue growth and increased customer satisfaction/loyalty.

FWIW, a large and growing number of Universities and community learning
organizations are offering hands-on instruction with MaxMSP and Jitter.
If reading the documentation isn’t doing it for you, I highly
recommend checking out our Resource guide for listings of classes near
you. Beyond that, maybe the Cycling ’74 workshop tour will come to your
town!

oh, I definitely will, Andrew. I couldn’t make the Toronto workshop, but Seattle or the Bay Area is feasible. To my knowledge BSU, our state university here in Boise, Idaho, does not offer the class, but I’ll double-check. We have just a few MAX/MSP users here now.

But beyond this, what is your take on doing virtual training? I am willing to get on the phone with you to talk about the technology and tools, approaches, etc. I can even set you up with an HP Education rep. Your product is an ideal situation for virtual eLearning. It would really expand your instructional horizons, plus put Cycling 74 on the cutting edge of technology education.

Kris

Quote: andrewb@cycling74.com wrote on Tue, 26 September 2006 11:18
—————————————————-
> FWIW, a large and growing number of Universities and community learning
> organizations are offering hands-on instruction with MaxMSP and Jitter.
> If reading the documentation isn’t doing it for you, I highly
> recommend checking out our Resource guide for listings of classes near
> you. Beyond that, maybe the Cycling ’74 workshop tour will come to your
> town!
>
> Cheers,
> Andrew B.
>
—————————————————-

As the work quietly continues apace on what will eventually become Max 5, we are continuing to think about how we can improve Max, and it should come as no surprise that thinking about how we make information accessible and available to users is a part of that process. Since this is an internal discussion and focus of activity, I’m afraid you’ll have to take our word for that; while the data we present may not take the form someone would like, I would hope that its present form and thoroughness suggests that we take such matters seriously, and will continue to do so. As always, we appreciate your patience.

In the interim period, there is nothing that stops anyone from deciding to create some kinds of materials they think would be useful to others even if we’re not hiring or currently in the market for new software product solutions, etc. The extended Max community is full of people who’ve seen a need to explain and provide examples for topics or techniques that don’t appear in what we’ve made [or are making, since it goes without saying that this is an ongoing process]. Peter Elsea’s work comes to mind, as does Darwin Grosse’s "startup" kits, and any number of interesting things in the share area of the Cycling ’74 site or locatable through the maxobjects.com site. You don’t need our permission or anyone else’s to embark on a version of that which you think would be helpful – indeed, many members of this community do that as a way of "paying it forward" to the people who’ve been kind to them. Cycling ’74 is and remains a (relatively) small firm with limited resources. We are extremely fortunate to have a community of users who are patient and generous and willing to assist others. By virtue of our size and that relationship with the community of our users, we’re not able to do everything. But we are hard at work, and the day will come when you see what we were doing. I think that it will be apparent that we’ve been thinking about these matters.

gregory

P.S. While I always worry about things being as clear as they could for non-native English speakers and readers, it’s hard to imagine how we could make the business of opening a VST effect editing window much more easily accessible, at the moment; it’s the third message box at the top of the help file, and quite clearly labeled – no manuals are needed.

Wow. Here’s an interesting email from an ex-student. If you want the full multi-media experience and you hate to read, sit down with a couple of friends and take turns reading the tutorial text aloud to each other while you’ve got the tutorial files open [you DO actually bother to open the tutorial files, right?]. The claim is that this is a good way to learn Max in community, and you’re only 1/nth as hoarse at the end [n being the number of your friends]. Never thought of it.

Glad to hear that you have future plans and ideas, and you’ll be looking into this, Gregory.

And I may follow you lead below on taking some of my own initiative. I had proposed to do this for the Reaktor user forum as well, but have been too swamped with work to get it going. Essentially, I had hoped to host a series of live virtual training sessions using HP’s Virtual Room technology, here:

I can also record sessions and make them available on demand.
The problem is that even though I have access to this technology myself, I can’ use it for external use. Customers have to lease the Virtual Training technology, 25 seats for three months, unlimited time, for $4300, $8400 for 50 seats.

I obviously can’t afford this, but a company who has a training plan and target audience that will attend can easily generate a return on investment. For instance, if a software company deliveres only three live elearning sessions a month, 25 students a session (no limit on the time of the session) and charges $25 a student, in three months the return on the initial investment of $4300 would be $1325. Though this is probably conservative. As a new MAX/MSP user, I’d fork out $100 with no hesitation if Cycling 74 were to offer three 90 minute virtual training sessions, and access to the recorded replays. If you had 25 people a month interested in this, that makes the ROI $3200. And one can even envision ongoing training updates on new features, or just a constant series of training that covers all the functionality of MAX/MSP, revolving sessions throughout the year. Anyway, I’m starting to sound like an HP sales rep now, rather than a HP Sales Training Manager. I’m going to figure out a way to demo this to some folks on this list.

Kris

Quote: Gregory Taylor wrote on Tue, 26 September 2006 15:00
—————————————————-
> As the work quietly continues apace on what will eventually become Max 5, we are continuing to think about how we can improve Max, and it should come as no surprise that thinking about how we make information accessible and available to users is a part of that process. Since this is an internal discussion and focus of activity, I’m afraid you’ll have to take our word for that; while the data we present may not take the form someone would like, I would hope that its present form and thoroughness suggests that we take such matters seriously, and will continue to do so. As always, we appreciate your patience.
>
> In the interim period, there is nothing that stops anyone from deciding to create some kinds of materials they think would be useful to others even if we’re not hiring or currently in the market for new software product solutions, etc. The extended Max community is full of people who’ve seen a need to explain and provide examples for topics or techniques that don’t appear in what we’ve made [or are making, since it goes without saying that this is an ongoing process]. Peter Elsea’s work comes to mind, as does Darwin Grosse’s "startup" kits, and any number of interesting things in the share area of the Cycling ’74 site or locatable through the maxobjects.com site. You don’t need our permission or anyone else’s to embark on a version of that which you think would be helpful – indeed, many members of this community do that as a way of "paying it forward" to the people who’ve been kind to them. Cycling ’74 is and remains a (relatively) small firm with limited resources. We are extremely fortunate to have a community of users who are patient and generous and willing to assist others. By virtue of our size and that relationship with the community of our users, we’re not able to do everything. But we are hard at work, and the day will come when you see what we were doing. I think that it will be apparent that we’ve been thinking about these matters.
>
> gregory
>
> P.S. While I always worry about things being as clear as they could for non-native English speakers and readers, it’s hard to imagine how we could make the business of opening a VST effect editing window much more easily accessible, at the moment; it’s the third message box at the top of the help file, and quite clearly labeled – no manuals are needed.
>
>
—————————————————-

Quote: Gregory Taylor wrote on Tue, 26 September 2006 15:29
—————————————————-
> Wow. Here’s an interesting email from an ex-student. If you want the full multi-media experience and you hate to read, sit down with a couple of friends and take turns reading the tutorial text aloud to each other while you’ve got the tutorial files open [you DO actually bother to open the tutorial files, right?]. The claim is that this is a good way to learn Max in community, and you’re only 1/nth as hoarse at the end [n being the number of your friends]. Never thought of it.
>

Well, I can’t tell if you’re being fececious here, but you make a valid point. When you get multiple people interacting together reading material that they could just as well read on their own, you get net new learning, because you are essentially using three brains and unique experiences to generate a single learning event. It’s synergy-based learning. Now, add a MAX/MSP expert/coach to the mix, and you get explosive learning potential.

I completely agree with Gregory. The help files are there, they’re damn easy. The tutorials are the best on the planet. I can appreciate any beginners lack of perspective on such REALITIES but I can not sit back and say anything other than the best possible solution, and that is, and always will be..

first in short : RTFM [just joking Wallace, simmer down]

but, in long : Cycling 74 has done a tremendously well job at explaining their demon child. Whenever I recommend Max to someone, about 3 times a week, I always say that. The fact for me is that if you sit down and do every one and take notes, test yourself, etc, there should be plenty to learn from in there. You are your greatest asset.

Most of the questions on this forum are ludicrous. Yet, they come from, as I said, a lack of perspective. Relax. It’s all just a dream, neh? Why do you take the bait, why not do what the people are teling you and quit worrying if its buttered up to P.C. standards.

The only expert/coach you’ll need is yourself. Anything less than that and you’re probably out of your league. Crazy? I don’t know. I wish I had someone to teach me MSP sometimes…

I don’t wish to be rude, but I was already uneasy at the arrival of phrases like "capturing target audiences" and the like – I honestly don’t think that running ROI numbers is at all appropriate to the question at hand here. I’m sure you’re enthusiastic about all of this, and please feel free to pursue whatever kinds of personal initiatives you wish, but if there’s any way to avoid making what is increasingly sounding like a sales pitch, that’d be great.

Sorry, Gregory. I don’t mean to come across that way, especially since there is no monetary again behind any of this for me (not possible). I’m just used to talking that way out of habit, and I like to think and dream of ways to help companies grow, and I believe this is one of them. This is no doubt an appropriate forum for this, but should be a business discussion with Cycling 74 off line. It’s pure over-enthusiasm on behalf.

Kris

Quote: Gregory Taylor wrote on Tue, 26 September 2006 21:23
—————————————————-
> I don’t wish to be rude, but I was already uneasy at the arrival of phrases like "capturing target audiences" and the like – I honestly don’t think that running ROI numbers is at all appropriate to the question at hand here. I’m sure you’re enthusiastic about all of this, and please feel free to pursue whatever kinds of personal initiatives you wish, but if there’s any way to avoid making what is increasingly sounding like a sales pitch, that’d be great.
>
—————————————————-

Krispen Hartung wrote:
> Great. Thanks, Stephen. This helps…everything helps. Although,
> adding more documentation reinforces my orginal point about learning
> styles. For some people, actually many people, reading is not their
> primary learning style, meaning they don’t learn as effective via
> that type of medium. In fact, only 30% of all learners learn best by
> reading.

I probably belong as well to the other 70%, I consider a software or
hardware good, if you don’t need to touch the manual assuming of course
you know something about the aim of the tool…

You would not expect a tool like Max is possible to master without
manual, but in fact it is! The most important part of the documentation
are the help files for each object. You can tweak them and find out most
by trial and error. As I stated already on this list, most answers to
questions I give, I do not know when I read the question. I just fire up
the objects, look at the help file and find out pretty quickly. Only if
something remains mysterious I’d look in the manual, which is quite well
organised. Of course this still assums you do know the basics which does
need some "getting into it". Doing the tutorials is like any online
instructor based eLearning. The only necesssary reading would be the
"Tutorials and Topics". After that you just need to jump in and fiddle
around…

I best learn by teaching actually, or together with some friends which
are learning the same topic. Ideal if one expert isn’t too far to get
the more tricky questions sorted out. And this I definitely prefer as
face-to-face help which isn’t easy to get always, but you can always ask
the list…

The most difficult part of learning is actually keeping what has been
learned. Whenever I start getting into Java for example, its hard to
stay within that field to gain enough knowledge to have it always on my
fingertips. I tend to solve a problem and go on with something else, and
by the time I could need it again, I have to learn again because it
wasn’t fixed up…

"The most important part of the documentation are the help files for
each object. You can tweak them and find out most by trial and error.
As I stated already on this list, most answers to questions I give, I
do not know when I read the question. I just fire up the objects,
look at the help file and find out pretty quickly. Only if something
remains mysterious I’d look in the manual, which is quite well
organised."

> Krispen Hartung wrote:
>> Great. Thanks, Stephen. This helps…everything helps. Although,
>> adding more documentation reinforces my orginal point about learning
>> styles. For some people, actually many people, reading is not their
>> primary learning style, meaning they don’t learn as effective via
>> that type of medium. In fact, only 30% of all learners learn best by
>> reading.
>
> I probably belong as well to the other 70%, I consider a software
> or hardware good, if you don’t need to touch the manual assuming of
> course you know something about the aim of the tool…
>
> You would not expect a tool like Max is possible to master without
> manual, but in fact it is! The most important part of the
> documentation are the help files for each object. You can tweak
> them and find out most by trial and error. As I stated already on
> this list, most answers to questions I give, I do not know when I
> read the question. I just fire up the objects, look at the help
> file and find out pretty quickly. Only if something remains
> mysterious I’d look in the manual, which is quite well organised.
> Of course this still assums you do know the basics which does need
> some "getting into it". Doing the tutorials is like any online
> instructor based eLearning. The only necesssary reading would be
> the "Tutorials and Topics". After that you just need to jump in and
> fiddle around…
>
> I best learn by teaching actually, or together with some friends
> which are learning the same topic. Ideal if one expert isn’t too
> far to get the more tricky questions sorted out. And this I
> definitely prefer as face-to-face help which isn’t easy to get
> always, but you can always ask the list…
>
> The most difficult part of learning is actually keeping what has
> been learned. Whenever I start getting into Java for example, its
> hard to stay within that field to gain enough knowledge to have it
> always on my fingertips. I tend to solve a problem and go on with
> something else, and by the time I could need it again, I have to
> learn again because it wasn’t fixed up…
>
> Stefan
>
> —
> Stefan Tiedje————x——-
> –_____———–|————–
> –(_|_ —-|—–|—–()——-
> — _|_)—-|—–()————–
> ———-()——–www.ccmix.com
>

Quote: Stefan Tiedje wrote on Wed, 27 September 2006 13:25
—————————————————-
> Krispen Hartung wrote:
> > Great. Thanks, Stephen. This helps…everything helps. Although, adding more documentation reinforces my orginal point about learning styles. For some people, actually many people, reading is not their primary learning style, meaning they don’t learn as effective via that type of medium. In fact, only 30% of all learners learn best by reading.

> I probably belong as well to the other 70%, I consider a software or hardware good, if you don’t need to touch the manual assuming of course you know something about the aim of the tool…

> You would not expect a tool like Max is possible to master without manual, but in fact it is! The most important part of the documentation are the help files for each object. You can tweak them and find out most by trial and error.

Oh, I absolutely agree with you on this. The help files are indeed "helpful" (I guess that would be a tautology), and very well designed. I like the way they describe what the object or component is, but they are also functional at the same time, allowing you to play with them, and leading to yet more help files. I would consdier them a tool for the learning process on the job or in practice, which we call a "Job Aid" or EPS (Electronic Performance System) in the instructional design industry.

> As I stated already on this list, most answers to questions I give, I do not know when I read the question. I just fire up the objects, look at the help file and find out pretty quickly. Only if something remains mysterious I’d look in the manual, which is quite well organised. Of course this still assums you do know the basics which does need some "getting into it". Doing the tutorials is like any online instructor based eLearning. The only necesssary reading would be the "Tutorials and Topics". After that you just need to jump in and fiddle around…

Yes, I can see a natural order of using the available documentation and help files, and how different people might use them at different times or at different times of their learning processs. Speaking of the tutorials, I have made it through a good portion of both the MAX and MSP tutorials, and having reviewed thousands of instructional packages in my career, and designed or project managed a few of them, my main observations are that the tutorials are still predominately "informational" vs. "instructional". Instructional material is typically heavy on providing action orientated guidelines and steps…or modeling as we call it. It shows "how" to do things in sequence, whether it is building, using, etc, vs. predominatley elaborating in depth on the "what". The tutorials do have this "how" in them, but they are also very heavey on the information conveying part…meaning that after about 15 pages one can feel as if he’s been drinking from a firehose. I am used to really effective instructional material containing very explicit step by step guidance on how to do things…uses cases, if you will. This is what instructors do…they model the actual bahavior or skills. But the tutorials are packed full of a lot of informations, paragraphs and paragraphs of describing a function or features, or object, telling the user what it is, but step by step "instructions" on how to "do" something are far and few. And what a surprise, when this stops becoming effective for me, I call up someone and they indeed walk through what I really need…just a basic and concise set of steps on how to build or do something. For example, I’d like to see a series of steps (numbered) that walks one through the process of bulding a workable product…not 10 paragraphcs that talk about it and then show a graphic of the object after it was build. It is a lot more difficult to write instructioanl material like this, vs. using informational approach of describing features and functionality in depth, as if this will miraculously convert into human behavior after one reads it.

Again, I’m not knocking the MAX/MSP material…I think it is very good…really good technical documentation for the product. I don’t consider the bulk of it instructional, but very effective information, however. There is a difference between these two. I think they are dependent on each other. I would expect a student to have read the manual and tutorial before getting formally trained, so that when they retain 5% of what they read, then have some familarity with the concepts and functionality.

> I best learn by teaching actually, or together with some friends which are learning the same topic. Ideal if one expert isn’t too far to get the more tricky questions sorted out. And this I definitely prefer as face-to-face help which isn’t easy to get always, but you can always ask the list…

You just hit the nail on the head, Stephen. Some research was done several years ago, and continues to be validated, on the retention rates of various type learning, from top to down on average retention rates: Lecture (5%), Reading (10%), Audio-Visual (20%), Demonstration (30%), Discussion Group (50%), Practice by Doing (75%), Teaching Others (90%)…Bingo. And this is why for me spending 30 minutes with someone on the phone or in person learning a MAX/MSP function is more useful (practically) than reading a manual or tutorial. The tutorials give me the information I need to put learning into context…it’s like good technical background.

Great discussion. And I just found out that my local university has an electronic music course that features MAX/MSP, so I am investing that.

What would be really cool is if someone were to use some computer desktop recording technology, like Camtasia, to capure them in real time building some patch or another, but also narrating it with their voice during the process. I’ve used this for software training before, and it gets a really positive response from learners…it’t the next best thing to live instruction. I have Camtasia and a phone tap, I just don’t have the MAX/MSP skills and knowledge to do it…so very frustrating. I’d love to do something like this a publish a set of eLearning modules on the web. I just need to do the Vulcan Mind Meld with someone to pull it off.

Would anyone be willing to work with me to produce a test module? All you would need to do is talk on the phone and walk through what you did on your computer and MAX/MSP.

I’m talking about help files and the tutorials. What else is there? Fuck the reference manual. I mean, I ‘ll use that if I ABSOLULTEY need to, but the help files are what make max easy, plus they lead to others, but more so, the Max tutorials 1-10 are at least mandatory I think. Sorry if I mixed you up with the reference manual.

Krispen Hartung wrote:
> I can also record sessions and make them available on demand. The
> problem is that even though I have access to this technology myself,
> I can’ use it for external use. Customers have to lease the Virtual
> Training technology, 25 seats for three months, unlimited time, for
> $4300, $8400 for 50 seats.

What is three months of unlimited time?

> I obviously can’t afford this, but a company who has a training plan
> and target audience that will attend can easily generate a return on
> investment.

You forget its only the software. You need some extra (wo)manpower to
fill it with content.
By the way its probably possible to do something like that with a
homebrewn Maxpatch instead of a super expensive at top 500 company
targeted software ;-)

Cycling for sure belongs to the top 500 in terms of innovation, but is
probably only within the top 50000000 in terms of size… ;-)

> Krispen Hartung wrote:
> > I can also record sessions and make them available on demand. The
> > problem is that even though I have access to this technology myself,
> > I can’ use it for external use. Customers have to lease the Virtual
> > Training technology, 25 seats for three months, unlimited time, for
> > $4300, $8400 for 50 seats.

dont get me wrong, but if someone needs to buy expensive
e-learning software to be able to e-learn, he is probably
not an autodidact enough to learn from an e-learning software.

ok, so far the philosophical part of this posting. :)

in the beginning i needed a lot of help – and
found it online. i knew a lot about DSP and i
also knew what a digital signal is, but it had
to be taught to me what the difference between
a number and a message is; i needed more thab
2 weeks to get it.

it was also necessary to teach me about search
path, subpatcher, how to select cords, how to
hide objects, and i needed about 50 people telling
me that i should use the help files.
of course i needed help with organisation of
large patches, and finally with keycommands such
as alt-cntrl-click or command-B.

for such kind of help a chat software should be
enough there is no reason to pay 4000 dollars
for this. if you need filesharing for exchanging
stuff add a filesharing software, if you need
desktop remote or desktop pictures of your
"teacher"s computer add some sofware which does
this job in addition.

when i am not wrong, its 5 years later now, and
things like ichat AV or onlline synchronisation
of 2 copies of nuendo/protools is comsumer standard
now, so it should be even easier to work online today.

>
>
>> Krispen Hartung wrote:
>>> I can also record sessions and make them available on demand. The
>>> problem is that even though I have access to this technology myself,
>>> I can’ use it for external use. Customers have to lease the Virtual
>>> Training technology, 25 seats for three months, unlimited time, for
>>> $4300, $8400 for 50 seats.
>
>
> dont get me wrong, but if someone needs to buy expensive
> e-learning software to be able to e-learn, he is probably
> not an autodidact enough to learn from an e-learning software.
>
> ok, so far the philosophical part of this posting. :)
>
>
> in the beginning i needed a lot of help – and
> found it online. i knew a lot about DSP and i
> also knew what a digital signal is, but it had
> to be taught to me what the difference between
> a number and a message is; i needed more thab
> 2 weeks to get it.
>
> it was also necessary to teach me about search
> path, subpatcher, how to select cords, how to
> hide objects, and i needed about 50 people telling
> me that i should use the help files.
> of course i needed help with organisation of
> large patches, and finally with keycommands such
> as alt-cntrl-click or command-B.
>
> for such kind of help a chat software should be
> enough there is no reason to pay 4000 dollars
> for this. if you need filesharing for exchanging
> stuff add a filesharing software, if you need
> desktop remote or desktop pictures of your
> "teacher"s computer add some sofware which does
> this job in addition.
>
> when i am not wrong, its 5 years later now, and
> things like ichat AV or onlline synchronisation
> of 2 copies of nuendo/protools is comsumer standard
> now, so it should be even easier to work online today.
>
>
>
>
>
> –
> "Volume is Always Green, Pan is Always the Same Knob."

Quote: Roman Thilenius wrote on Wed, 27 September 2006 17:37
—————————————————-
>
> > Krispen Hartung wrote:
> > > I can also record sessions and make them available on demand. The> problem is that even though I have access to this technology myself, I can’ use it for external use. Customers have to lease the Virtual Training technology, 25 seats for three months, unlimited time, for $4300, $8400 for 50 seats.

> dont get me wrong, but if someone needs to buy expensive
> e-learning software to be able to e-learn, he is probably
> not an autodidact enough to learn from an e-learning software.

It’s not for end users to purchase, but large and medium sized companies, mainly for internal training, but some use it for customer training. Companies save major dollars by doing virtual training in place of face-to-face, because of the high costs of having to fly people around to take courses, travel freezes, etc. There has to be a significant business case to warrant going with something like this. Most major companies have now moved to a 50% plus eLaerning model using live virtual training technology. We were forced to because of cost cutting, difficult in making numbers from quarter to quarter…all that depressing stuff.

> ok, so far the philosophical part of this posting. :)

[snip]

> for such kind of help a chat software should be
> enough there is no reason to pay 4000 dollars
> for this. if you need filesharing for exchanging
> stuff add a filesharing software, if you need
> desktop remote or desktop pictures of your
> "teacher"s computer add some sofware which does
> this job in addition.

Chat sounds wonferful…it won’t be as effective as formal virtual training where instructors demonstrate how to do things, allow students to practice, etc…but chatting is what I referred to before as an EPS – electronic support system. It can go along way and is one component of the big picture of increasing skills. NetMeeting is another tool, but you have to have MicroSoft server space for it, and I have no idea what that runs.

Feel free to engage in any act you wish to
with the Reference Manuals [*your* copy,
thank you], but it bears repeating that the
help files are an attempt to represent the
most commonly used features of an object
for the sake of efficiency; you assume that
they contain everything you need to know at
your own peril.

While there’s probably some kind of temporary
rush and theatricality to disparaging texts
[be they Reference Manuals, Dictionaries,
Encyclopedias, or the Bill of Rights], such
a view won’t benefit you in the long run.

It seems pretty self-evident. If Max is about
the transfer of messages and blocks of data
between objects in a signal network, then if
seems patently obvious that some portion of
Max will always be about reading, and the most
efficient means of storage [even more efficient
that patch grovels] is text, and learning to
read is the most efficient way of doing that.

I’m as visual/right brained as they come, but
even I figured that one out.

>> in the beginning i needed a lot of help – and
>> found it online. i knew a lot about DSP and i
>> also knew what a digital signal is, but it had
>> to be taught to me what the difference between
>> a number and a message is; i needed more thab
>> 2 weeks to get it.
>>
>> it was also necessary to teach me about search
>> path, subpatcher, how to select cords, how to
>> hide objects, and i needed about 50 people telling
>> me that i should use the help files.

Interesting. That’s the first half-day or so of
EVERY workshop I’ve taught. That’s pretty much
all of it except for some ranting on my part about
why skipping over that basic stuff in the name of
having fun will condemn you to a lifetime of Max
lameness and patch grovels. I am told that I am a
paragon of moderation in comparison to Joshua
Goldberg [whose students burn as brightly as
their Sensei], however. :-)

One of the changes in the last Max docs involved
altering the title of one of the manuals from
"Getting Started" to "Fundamentals". This wasn’t
so much in the interests of an embrace of Fundamentalism
as the vague hope that perhaps generations to come
would be less likely to skip over a document called
"Fundamentals" than one with a name like
"Getting Started" [which couldn't possibly contain
any information that a really smart person might want
to know, right?]. It continues to this day to amaze
me at how often I can cite the specific page in the
now-titled Fundamentals text where a question for
both the noob and the seasoned but reading-averse
Max user sits placidly on the page in black and white.

Sure isn’t true for everything, but Chris Dobrian
and David Z. *nailed* the basics all those years
ago, and it’s still all true. As the Oblique
Strategies suggest, "Always first steps."

Wow. That was quick. A delightful man who attended
the recent Toronto workshop wrote to remind me of
the actual state of affairs. I neglected to tell you
that I ranted *a lot,* and that I neglected to
mention also that I also taught them how to
read a manual page after explaining what arguments
and messages and attributes were. He viewed this
as a good thing to have done – it’s certainly clear
from the other bit of his note [something about
FFTs] that he’s makind lots more interesting and
exotic beginner’s mistakes.

theres always #max/msp on beloeved Efnet. Right now there are about 7 people in there hehe. for PD, theres #dataflow on freenode.net which is kinda interesting.. but, like Vade said.. the open source conversations are abundent :o)

It’s obvious what needs to be done ladies and gentlemen. Although I am defintely not going to be the one to do it.

We need a java applet + abstraction that can be placed in the "extras" folder that can join realtime max/msp chat in an irc channel. That way, the new dudes can talk to the "power users" and get some help.

>
> It’s obvious what needs to be done ladies and gentlemen. Although I
> am defintely not going to be the one to do it.
>
> We need a java applet + abstraction that can be placed in the
> "extras" folder that can join realtime max/msp chat in an irc
> channel. That way, the new dudes can talk to the "power users" and
> get some help.
>
> whose gonna do it? It’s a pretty simple application, right???????
> extras folder would be nifty!!

> Feel free to engage in any act you wish to
> with the Reference Manuals [*your* copy,
> thank you], but it bears repeating that the
> help files are an attempt to represent the
> most commonly used features of an object
> for the sake of efficiency; you assume that
> they contain everything you need to know at
> your own peril.

I know you’re right, Gregory, but too many users just don’t get it
and won’t get it. A shame, really, because the RefMan is so good.

However, my goal is to communicate to end-users how to use my
software, not to teach them how to make best use of software
documentation. So, if users want everything explained in the .help
files, maybe they should get everything explained in the .help files.
If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed…

I don’t know if you’ve had time to look at the .help files in the
Litter Power 1.7 betas. I’m attempting to get everything worth
knowing (and more!-) into the .help files. The solutions I’ve found
may be neither complete nor perfect, but I’m getting there (hopefully).

It is certainly more work getting all the information into
unstructured windows instead of a structured document layout. But
maybe it’s worth it.

> > for such kind of help a chat software should be
> > enough there is no reason to pay 4000 dollars
> > for this. if you need filesharing for exchanging
> > stuff add a filesharing software, if you need
> > desktop remote or desktop pictures of your
> > "teacher"s computer add some sofware which does
> > this job in addition.
>
> Chat sounds wonferful…it won’t be as effective as formal >virtual training where instructors demonstrate how to do
>things, allow students to practice, etc…

how do you know when you never tried anything else than
teaching like teachers usually do.
why are the schsools in the USA and in germany among the
worst in this world. because our way of teaching is so good?

mayybe i had bad luck, but i have never seen a teacher who
was able to tech me anything, i learned almost anything by
doing.
yes, it has disadvantages too, but not in the field of
knowing things or abilities.

>NetMeeting is another tool, but you have to have MicroSoft
>server space for it, and I have no idea what that runs.
>
> Kris

why exactly is "formal training" not possible using
haxial desktop remote and a webbased chatroom?
whats wrong with ICQ and ichat?

i teach you stuff right here at the forum if neccesary, and
actually i learned a lot here too during the last 6 years.

if "formal" means that you need a highschool degrade or even
pay money for entrance, most people which would be interested
in programming or arts courses would be excluded from taking
part anyway.

I dont think anyone is asking for a cycling approved/run and
administered IRC channel/magic svn for helpfiles. I for one prefer
the Max community to be a rather robust and and lively ecosystem of
that is not wholly dependent on c74 for externals, development or
support. Note the plural. However, email and the web forum is a
vastly different type of communication and fosters a different type
of community than one of a live group chat. But we all know this.

On 28-Sep-2006, at 14:43, undersigned wrote:
> I decided to take my response off list.

And forgot to change the To: field.

Oy, gevalt.

Apologies to everyone. There’s nothing personal in the message, but
discussions in a public forum have a different atmosphere than
private exchanges, and, dang, the same words can sound _different_
when people are watching.

> > Chat sounds wonferful…it won’t be as effective as formal >virtual training where instructors demonstrate how to do
> >things, allow students to practice, etc…
>
>
> how do you know when you never tried anything else than
> teaching like teachers usually do. why are the schsools in the USA and in germany among the worst in this world. because our way of teaching is so good?

Good question. At least for the USA, our public schoold are State government funded, and it takes years of beuracracy to institute new learning methodologies and approaches, whereas private schools and learning orgs in corporations tend to be on the cutting edge. It’s unfortunate.

> mayybe i had bad luck, but i have never seen a teacher who
> was able to tech me anything, i learned almost anything by
> doing. yes, it has disadvantages too, but not in the field of
> knowing things or abilities.

nothing wrong with this…you are like me. I believe about 70% of my learning style is by doing, the rest by reading, etc. But to your point, a good instructor will know how to address multiple learning styles in the classroom. A bad instructor is one who thinks that being a talking head and "dispenser" of knowledge will somehow seap into the minds of learners and convert to skills…this has never been proved to be the case. In support of your point, a good instructor is also a coach in the classroom, and good instruction provides a nice blend of lecture (for the information part), instructor modeling (showing how it is done), student exercises (guided activities or the "doing" part), feedback, practice, and group discussion (synthesis of what has been learned). World class and award winning workshops in the training industry contain these components. They never fail to be effective. And now we know why research has shown that lecture only has a 5% rentention rate.

It is. I’ve been saying this all along..if it has those components I mentioned above, it doesn’t matter if it is face-to-face or virtual..unless you are teaching behaviors that require human contact, like live presentation skills, etc.

> i teach you stuff right here at the forum if neccesary, and
> actually i learned a lot here too during the last 6 years.

Same here. I’m advocatin a pluralist approach here…everything helps and counts toward the larger picture of learning. It all works together as a system, just like objects and messeges in MAX/MSP.. :)

> if "formal" means that you need a highschool degrade or even
> pay money for entrance, most people which would be interested
> in programming or arts courses would be excluded from taking
> part anyway.

It doesn’t mean this, if whoever is doing the instruction has the means, resources, and tools to do it. If I had a free virtual training tool that could host up to 250 live participants, do voice over IP, ability to upload slides, share desktops live, allow control of other’s desktops, launch surveys, record sesssions for playback, launch group chat rooms (multiple breakout sessions on one), create and lauch real time check point questions/tests, markup the virtual whiteboard with graphics, etc, I’d allow any expert on this MAX/MSP group to use it. I wish I could do that. But good learning technology, if you want to put all the pieces together is not free. Unless someone knows of a tool that will do the things above for free. But, I am advocating a pluralistic approach here. This type of formal training is very effective, but not everyone needs it. Some people are great self-learners…that’s just another learning style in the mix.

> > Chat sounds wonferful…it won’t be as effective as formal >virtual training where instructors demonstrate how to do
> >things, allow students to practice, etc…
>
>
> how do you know when you never tried anything else than
> teaching like teachers usually do. why are the schsools in the USA and in germany among the worst in this world. because our way of teaching is so good?

Good question. At least for the USA, our public schoold are State government funded, and it takes years of beuracracy to institute new learning methodologies and approaches, whereas private schools and learning orgs in corporations tend to be on the cutting edge. It’s unfortunate.

> mayybe i had bad luck, but i have never seen a teacher who
> was able to tech me anything, i learned almost anything by
> doing. yes, it has disadvantages too, but not in the field of
> knowing things or abilities.

nothing wrong with this…you are like me. I believe about 70% of my learning style is by doing, the rest by reading, etc. But to your point, a good instructor will know how to address multiple learning styles in the classroom. A bad instructor is one who thinks that being a talking head and "dispenser" of knowledge will somehow seap into the minds of learners and convert to skills…this has never been proved to be the case. In support of your point, a good instructor is also a coach in the classroom, and good instruction provides a nice blend of lecture (for the information part), instructor modeling (showing how it is done), student exercises (guided activities or the "doing" part), feedback, practice, and group discussion (synthesis of what has been learned). World class and award winning workshops in the training industry contain these components. They never fail to be effective. And now we know why research has shown that lecture only has a 5% rentention rate.

It is. I’ve been saying this all along..if it has those components I mentioned above, it doesn’t matter if it is face-to-face or virtual..unless you are teaching behaviors that require human contact, like live presentation skills, etc.

> i teach you stuff right here at the forum if neccesary, and
> actually i learned a lot here too during the last 6 years.

Same here. I’m advocatin a pluralist approach here…everything helps and counts toward the larger picture of learning. It all works together as a system, just like objects and messeges in MAX/MSP.. :)

> if "formal" means that you need a highschool degrade or even
> pay money for entrance, most people which would be interested
> in programming or arts courses would be excluded from taking
> part anyway.

It doesn’t mean this, if whoever is doing the instruction has the means, resources, and tools to do it. If I had a free virtual training tool that could host up to 250 live participants, do voice over IP, ability to upload slides, share desktops live, allow control of other’s desktops, launch surveys, record sesssions for playback, launch group chat rooms (multiple breakout sessions on one), create and lauch real time check point questions/tests, markup the virtual whiteboard with graphics, etc, I’d allow any expert on this MAX/MSP group to use it. I wish I could do that. But good learning technology, if you want to put all the pieces together is not free. Unless someone knows of a tool that will do the things above for free. But, I am advocating a pluralistic approach here. This type of formal training is very effective, but not everyone needs it. Some people are great self-learners…that’s just another learning style in the mix.

Lets get on the ball. The IRC app in the extra’s folder was never meant to be a cycling supported project, Roman. Maybe someone could mod the source of an opensource IRC client and make it autoconnect to some specified server. It would be nice to access full featured chat from within max and also from the extras menu or at startup. I think as a community incentive and a social center it might be kinda fun to have people to talk to.

Oh, and, Roman, if you’re reading this.. Anyway you could please change the 110 abstractions archive to something other than .toast? It was addressed a few months back and I don’t know if you put up a .zip.

> We need a java applet + abstraction that can be placed in the
> "extras" folder that can join realtime max/msp chat in an irc
> channel. That way, the new dudes can talk to the "power users" and
> get some help.

> At least for the USA, our public schoold are State government funded, and it takes years of beuracracy to institute new learning methodologies and approaches, whereas private schools and learning orgs in corporations tend to be on the cutting edge. It’s unfortunate.
>

school had 2 elements which i hated since i am 7 years old:
the one thing is that you go there for marks, for beeing rated.
(as opposed to "learning" in the 110 meaning)

the other thing is that you have zero influence on the content.
they teach you what they think is important.
then you end up leaving school, and you still do not know
how to solve problms, how to organize household, run a
raltionship, take part in politics, educate your kids, drive
a car, found a company.
but you might know about some ugly language called "french"
or what winston churchill said at the 4th of march in 1941.

> A bad instructor is one who thinks that being a talking
> head and "dispenser" of knowledge will somehow seap into

you know, i have seen training courses at the SAE or
at Deutsche Bank and Arthur Andersson and their teaching
style was about exactly that kind of bullshit.
the german word for such teaching is "frontal lesson".
the front idiot is telling the other idiots some stuff
he does not understand himself.

too radical maybe – but a bad teacher is one who is
a teacher by "profession" and not because he is interested
in the one who learns from him.

> They never fail to be effective.

hehe, effective for who :) … i do not disagree with your
idea that in companies training is more effective than in
schools, i just have to ask FOR WHO.

And now we know why research has shown that lecture only has a 5% rentention rate.

> it doesn’t matter if it is face-to-face or virtual..unless you >are teaching behaviors that require human contact, like live >presentation skills, etc.

right, my horizon was a bit small here, of course there
are things which you can not teach online so good, even when
it is releated to a programming laguange. it starts with
connecting hardware and things like that.

> If I had a free virtual training tool that could host
> up to 250 live participants

I’m happy to see that someone remember my MaxChat patch!
The idea was to let max user chat without installing any 3rd party software.
but I encountered 2 major problems :
#1 : if user is behind a firewall or a shared internet connexion, he
must route the right udp port manually in his router / modem /
firewall… to his computer to be able to receive messages.
(if you’re used to this kind of thing, it takes just a couple of
seconds, …if you’ve never done it before, it can be a mess!)
#2 : the client patch must connect to a permanent server to get the list
of all available chat servers and online users… and actually, this
permanent server (wich was an old pc at my home) is down (dead)!

I couldn’t find any solution to those 2 major limitations, so…
This patch was maybe more a proof of concept than a real replacement to
a good old irc client…
you can still download it to have a look on how it’s done (not so
complicated…) but you probably won’t be able to connect to any server
over internet. (but it should work fine on a LAN)

—————————————————-
> Anyway you could please change the 110 abstractions archive to something other than .toast? It was addressed a few months back and I don’t know if you put up a .zip.
—————————————————-

> > A bad instructor is one who thinks that being a talking
> > head and "dispenser" of knowledge will somehow seap into
>
>
> you know, i have seen training courses at the SAE or
> at Deutsche Bank and Arthur Andersson and their teaching
> style was about exactly that kind of bullshit.
> the german word for such teaching is "frontal lesson".
> the front idiot is telling the other idiots some stuff
> he does not understand himself.

yeah, and there are companies charging major bucks to training people like that…almost a farse. any fool can read bullets on a slide to a class full of manikins. :)

> too radical maybe – but a bad teacher is one who is
> a teacher by "profession" and not because he is interested
> in the one who learns from him.
>
>
> > They never fail to be effective.
>
>
> hehe, effective for who :) … i do not disagree with your
> idea that in companies training is more effective than in
> schools, i just have to ask FOR WHO.

Sorry I didn’t clarify. More effective to the relative audience. I guess we are talking apples and oranges here. My area of specialty is in adult learning, as is most large IT companies. Adults have their own bucket full of challenges! The "What’s in it for me" factor is gigantor. Trying to gain the attention of 250 sales reps sitting at their home offices, while you teach them the details of a new service or product cann be fun…takes a lot of activity to keep them from wandering away and multi-tasking.

> right, my horizon was a bit small here, of course there
> are things which you can not teach online so good, even when
> it is releated to a programming laguange. it starts with
> connecting hardware and things like that.

Exactly. Though I have some peers who have some some really interesting hybrid classroom / virtual training. Basically, the instructor would use a virtual classroom and a webcam to show how to service a product, and a room full of students (with an assistant) across the ocean would be following along with the same product..really cool stuff.

> … is there such thing in the non virtual world … ?

You never know…we could all be brains in a vat, victims of Descartes Evil Genius. You’re just an object..better yet, an abstraction.

Krispen Hartung wrote:
> We were forced to because of cost cutting, difficult in making
> numbers from quarter to quarter…all that depressing stuff.

Yes, thats the point of even fooling major companies. If someone is
spending a fortune for flying people around, and you offer a solution to
leave them at home, you cut costs dramitacally. That cut in cost will
make you believe its a bargain. It could be much cheaper, but for
someone who spent so much money this is something he does NEVER WANT to
believe.
There needs to remain a high price tag to make the boss believe you
didn’t waste the money before that technology arrived…. Cutting costs
by 60% is the best boost for a carriere, but cutting it by 99.9% would
cut you carriere, because you didn’t do it the day/week/month/year
before… ;-)

I remember when the first CD-ROMS with the complete phonebook arrived in
Germany. The telecom would ask for something like $1000.
They had good reasons to do so, because they actually sold it for that
price and told people this price was necessary for the ROI…
To cut this down to finally give it away for free took maybe five
years… there was a competition which sold it for $20 and they made
money with it… ;-)
It was kind of funny, because the telecom claimed copyrigths (which they
only could because they are that big – and judges believe in top 500
companies more than in god…). That competitor then went to China to
retype the whole phonebook by hand, and the end product still wasn’t
more expensive…

I get the difference, and this is very well suited at common tasks.
A wordprocessor application could just show the way how to create a
letter. Because every user of that program would just need to know that.

With Max its a bit more complicated. As the usage and reason for working
in Max is as diverse as the userbase. If you want the instruction for
creating a looper, you’re starving for that instruction, but only a very
small percentage is actually interested in that.

There are instructional resources for Max (Search Synthesisters.com) for
example how to build a synthesizer. There are also quite well known
instructions for Pd for creating drum sounds. (You can use them almost
directly to rebuild them in Max). Andrew Pask is just delivering us
every week with an instructional patch (its the Jitter recipes and just
misses your demand again…)

> Great discussion. And I just found out that my local university has
> an electronic music course that features MAX/MSP, so I am investing
> that.

Its absolutely amazing how often Max is now taught at universities.

> Would anyone be willing to work with me to produce a test module? All
> you would need to do is talk on the phone and walk through what you
> did on your computer and MAX/MSP.

Not too much time at the moment, but it could be nice to do just two
hands ons: How to create a looper and how to create a vst host.
This would cover only two small possible usages of Max, but it would fit
to your needs and it would help some others…

As I can’t do it very soon, just document any pitfalls you came
across… ;-)

Quote: Stefan Tiedje wrote on Sun, 01 October 2006 07:10
—————————————————-
> but it could be nice to do just two hands ons: How to create a looper and how to create a vst host. This would cover only two small possible usages of Max, but it would fit to your needs and it would help some others…

I will bo working on the VST host part very soon with somone…we have some good ideas, I think, and I’ll be incorporating all this stuff I’ve been talking about in terms of instruction.

Roman Thilenius wrote:
> an old idea of mine was something like a custom help file
> database, where people can share their changed, updated,
> corrected, streamlined helpfiles, so that you can go there
> and see if someone has a helpfile which is "better" than
> the original helpfile (say [lcd]) and when you wish you
> replace yours with it.

That is a nice idea, are you willing to host it? If I where you I would
enhance it with a voting system, and if a helpfile mod will collect a
certain amount of votes, cycling has enough reasons to include it into
the official distribution…

lately I changed all!! help files of Max and MSP and Cycling did include
them (remeber the "see also" section? your Max 4.1 might miss it… ;-)

we have no problem with users replacing our ‘modding’ our documentation
(that’s why they consist mostly of patchers); however, if you honestly
feel that something is missing from a help patch, there’s an excellent
chance we’ll agree with you and incorporate it into a subsequent version
of max. our help patches are a bit of a balancing act between providing
an easily legible (and re-usable) piece of max code featuring the object
in question on the one hand, and a live reference for the object on the
other.

while i won’t go into specifics at this time, we are looking into ways to
make it easier for all of you to contribute to the max documentation
system in the future; in the meantime, suggestions are more than welcome,
as are contributions to the max/msp/jitter examples.

best.

/luke

On Mon, 2 Oct 2006, Stefan Tiedje wrote:

> Roman Thilenius wrote:
>> an old idea of mine was something like a custom help file
>> database, where people can share their changed, updated,
>> corrected, streamlined helpfiles, so that you can go there
>> and see if someone has a helpfile which is "better" than
>> the original helpfile (say [lcd]) and when you wish you
>> replace yours with it.
>
> That is a nice idea, are you willing to host it? If I where you I would
> enhance it with a voting system, and if a helpfile mod will collect a
> certain amount of votes, cycling has enough reasons to include it into
> the official distribution…
>
> lately I changed all!! help files of Max and MSP and Cycling did include
> them (remeber the "see also" section? your Max 4.1 might miss it… ;-)
>
> Stefan
>
> —
> Stefan Tiedje————x——-
> –_____———–|————–
> –(_|_ —-|—–|—–()——-
> — _|_)—-|—–()————–
> ———-()——–www.ccmix.com
>
>
>
>

Andrew Benson wrote:
> >Andrew Pask is just delivering us every week with an instructional
> >patch (its the Jitter recipes and just misses your demand again…)
>
>
> I think you mean the other Andrew. ;)

> Roman Thilenius wrote:
> > an old idea of mine was something like a custom help file
> > database, where people can share their changed, updated,
> > corrected, streamlined helpfiles, so that you can go there

> That is a nice idea, are you willing to host it?

i am always able to host stuff, but i hate php and perl
and all this cryptic bs.

we aready have helpfiles, "see also", the "more about"
subpatchers, the jitter html docs, the reference books,
the developer guides, channels for customer support and
streamlined bug report instructions, installer readmes,
and this forum … an eleventh kind of "built-in"
documentation or help will only confuse people more.

my idea is that any original C74 helpfile should have a
button "check for more" and this would bring you to "more".

this set of original C74 helpfiles with "more button" is
available semewhere, and when you want to take part in the
"more" system, you use those.)

what "more" actually is, is another question then. it could,
for a start, be url links to a website or ftp server with
files from other people.

"custom helpfile" and "custom inspector" could also simply
be a filetype at maxobject.com, but you would always need
widespread "C74 helpfiles with more button" to make people
sharing or looking for replacements and additions.

i dont think your french object boxes or my pink backgrounds
will make anybody else but the creator happy, and notices
about bugs should be sent to C74.

but sharing custom helpfiles and also means searching new
paradigms for making helpfiles. more an exchange of ideas
than exchanging the whole custom helpfile as is.

Roman Thilenius wrote:
> but sharing custom helpfiles and also means searching new
> paradigms for making helpfiles. more an exchange of ideas
> than exchanging the whole custom helpfile as is.
>
> just like we do it with abstractions.

The problem with modified help files is: they might be overwritten with
the next update, or if you place them somewhere else, Max might still
find the unmodified first…

But still the enhancement of help files could be a good discussion
ground fo finding out how helpful they actually are. Whenever I need
info within a help file I do often add some message boxes to answer some
unanswered questions. But thats rarly worth to save…

A kind of help wiki hosted at cycling 74 could be more interesting, as
then cycling could include the enhanced versions directly into updates
and only then the enhancements would remain without installation pains…